Disclaimer: Why would I waste my time here if I owned HTTYD? Think about it…
Only Stoick, Astrid, and Hiccup knew what really happened with the Night Fury. But all the Vikings knew that it was the new ultimate prize for the winner of dragon training.
Once a few twisted stories came out, Vikings flocked to see the Night Fury. Gobber tried to shoo them away. Some snuck in at night to see if someone really had caught a Night Fury. The following morning they would wonder if the Night Fury was even there because it made no sound.
This topic never failed to provoke discussion amongst Gobber's current training class.
"If it really is there, it's sleeping." Snotlout suggested.
"How could anything sleep for that long?" wondered Tuffnut. (Then Fishlegs proceeded to talk of all the dragons he knew of who could sleep for years and years and appear dead.)
"Nobody has seen one of those in years," scoffed Ruffnut, "It's probably just dead."
"It better not be," murmured Astrid, "eh, Hiccup?"
Through every conversation of the Night Fury, Hiccup's reaction was always the same: he always said nothing.
It was all very odd.
Ever since dragon training started, Hiccup had been acting weird. Well, weirder, thought Astrid. He usually wasn't this secretive. Normally, he tried to show people what he was up to. But not this time.
Hiccup would disappear for hours at a time after training and no one would know where he was or what he was doing. And speaking of training, he was surprisingly good at it!
Hiccup would go into the ring for training and pull some crazy trick out of his butt that no one had ever seen before!
"He's a natural!" The Vikings said.
"Who knew?"
And one comment that particularly annoyed Astrid came from Fishlegs way too often. "He's the best!"
The most recent time he had said it was after training in the hall. Astrid had just lost to Hiccup again, this time with most of the village watching to see what Hiccup could do. So when Fishlegs let out another cry of "He's the best!" Astrid punched him in the gut. Most of the surrounding Vikings took no notice of Astrid's only triumph since the Night Fury and laughed at Fishlegs. When they noticed Hiccup's arrival, they all, including Fishlegs, ran to bombard him with questions and some of the younger female Vikings with sighs and stares.
"Ugh!" spat Astrid in disgust, "I can't believe this!"
"Can't believe what?" Ruffnut asked her.
"Hiccup, that's what!" Astrid said vehemently, "How is he doing it? He does nothing Gobber says and nothing I, or anyone else for that matter, has ever seen before!"
Ruffnut shrugged. "Nobody knows. It's probably in his blood, ya know? Anyway, at least he's good at something."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, he's horrible at everything else. Maybe he's been saving it up."
Astrid couldn't believe this. Even Ruffnut, Astrid's best friend, had to admit that Hiccup was better than she was at dealing with dragons.
"Saving it up? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, in case you never noticed, Hiccup has never been around us for extended periods of time, has he?" Ruffnut said.
Astrid recalled that the few times she had stumbled across Hiccup, he had been deep in the forests by himself. In fact, he was alone in the forest the other day when she told him that they were to be married.
"Yeah! Maybe he's been training with someone!"
Ruffnut fell off her bench and rolled on the floor laughing.
"It could happen! We didn't think he could be good at anything and look at him now!" Astrid protested, reddening.
After Ruffnut calmed down from her fit of laughter, she got back onto her bench. "Listen, it's not that big of a deal. He's the son of the chief. He's bound to beat us at something someday. He's supposed to. It's his destiny, I guess."
When she was younger, Astrid had taken pleasure in the fact that Hiccup wasn't very strong and didn't amount to much: since the chief-to-be didn't have much going for him, someone in his generation would need to be the best. Before Hiccup had risen to greatness in the past week, Astrid had told herself that being the best was her destiny. And now Ruffnut was saying it was Hiccup's destiny?
At that moment, she could care less about everything else. The green monster reared inside Astrid Hofferson. She had to seek revenge on the glory that he had taken away from her. And the only way to do that…would be to uncover his secret.
Author's Note: Let's be logical here. Does this look like the kind of author who would kill off Toothless?